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RE: [RC] Rice Bran before a ride? - Susan E. Garlinghouse, DVMGot a question: I was recently told that I should stop feeding rice bran before a ride, but I didn't get any details as to why. I feed Natural Glo, which is balanced for calcium, so it shouldn't throw the Ca:P ratio off. Is there some other reason to not feed rice bran the week before a ride? Thanks That may or may not have evolved from my recommendations to stop feeding fats a few days before, and also during, a ride. Fats have a high satiety factor, (call it the "cheeseburger effect"), meaning that a high-fat meal satisfies the appetite for longer than a low-fat meal does. It happens in horses as well as people, and in horses, lots of fat may suppress forage intake immediately prior to and during a ride. Forage has a much more critical role in maintaining gut motility, and also as a secondary role in driving water intake---both a lot more important than anything fats have to offer during a ride weekend. Fats have their advantages as a consistent part of the diet, but offer few advantages if fed immediately before or during the ride itself. So even if you're already offering hay (and presumably you are), you want to do everything you can to encourage maximum intake and not suppress his appetite for forage in any way. Does that make sense? While I don't recommend actually adding fats to the ration before or during the ride, I'm mostly referring to pure fats---adding vegetable oil, Cool Calories, cocasoy, those sort of things. I'm not as concerned about feeds that are a normal part of the horses' ration, which coincidentally provide a fair amount of fat---rice bran, Ultium and other high-fat formulated performance feeds, flax, sunflower seeds, those sort of things. In those cases, you're probably not actually feeding all that much pure fat. If you also balance it against the benefits of keeping the horse's ration consistent, and presumably feeding him something he likes and will eat well at a ride, then I wouldn't get too excited about really restricting or removing every scrap of rice bran from his ration the week before a ride. Hope this helps. Susan Garlinghouse, DVM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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